Thursday, February 10, 2011

Lady Killer......please

I'm going to start writing about music. A lot. In time, if I seriously make a go of this, these posts might just get moved to a "Sari talks (candidly) about music" blog and this blog will resume its normal inactivity.

For now, bear with it. You might actually find it interesting.

Today's topic....Cee-Lo. (No, I'm not kidding).

Ok, so a while ago, the local most awesome public radio station ever took to playing some work by Cee-Lo Green. Not surprising, since they've long been advocates of the work of Gnarles Barkley, which was founded by Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse. I've got a lot of respect for the work of Danger Mouse (even outside of Broken Bells), and I appreciate Gnarles Barkley (somewhat stupid name aside), but I knew next to nothing about Cee-Lo. Until he decided to release some songs. And the radio decided to play them.

In case you haven't heard it, the song I primarily refer to here is called "F**k You" or "Forget You" as it would be on the radio. Now, I'm for the use of the F-word in some things, but when it's a song that you want people to play on the radio and you KNOW you have to make a version with an alternate title just so that people will actually listen to it, that makes me wonder about you a little.

Here it is..for those of you who want to be in the know.

Ok...so...basically, this song is Cee-Lo saying "Forget You"(we'll keep it clean here) to the rich guys the girl he wants to go out with is dating and to the girl herself for being a gold digger. I hear you there, but.....kinda one of the older gimmicks in the book. However, I can see the underlying talent behind this song, and it made me want to see more. So, I did a full-scale (Wikipedia) investigation to see if I could figure out whether I thought Cee-Lo was worthy of my not easily gained musical respect.

Here's what I learned. His website is atrocious. His albums are titled...."Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections", "Cee-Lo Green....is the Soul Machine", and, most recently (the album in question here), "Cee-Lo Green is The Lady Killer". They all made me roll my eyes. More strikes against Cee-Lo.

Until yesterday.

When I heard this:


He covered Band of Horses. And he did it well. Don't get me wrong, I still like THEIR version of the song like 400 times better, but.....no denying.....the man's got talent.

I may buy into you yet, "Lady Killer". But rest assured that I'll keep rolling my eyes about it.


Stay tuned for next time....when I either talk about Cloud Cult and hipsters or finally cannot contain my fangasm about Bright Eyes having a delicious new album.

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